and i think this is a real opportunity for governor romney right now to seize the reigns and to suggest that president obama's leadership hasn't worked on the economy and creating jobs. and it gives him, romney, the opportunity to say we can do better, we must do better and i'm the man to get it done. >> mayor morial, if you were advising the president, how would you tell him to play it? >> i think he hinted at a harry truman-approach. which is to contrast his plan versus a congress that sits on its hand. the president talked about his american jobs act and the fundamental need for us to do more. and i believe, and the urban league believes there needs to be more fiscal and monetary stimulus to stimulate the demand in the economy. not this idea there's nothing to do. i was struck by governor romney in that he offered no ideas. certainly it's easy to offer a critique of the situation and of the president. but this race i think is going to be a contrast between the president's record and ideas for the future versus i think the governor's idea that the policies of the past ought to be resu

a crucial time for the romney campaign, right, john? >> reporter: it is and a tricky choice to make. as you mentioned, those polls indicate that president obama may be opening up some significant lead over romney after they've been deadlocked for a long time. you saw the nbc/"wall street journal" poll last week with a six-point advantage for the president. reuters with a seven-point advantage. fox news last night, a nine point. obama creeping up to about 49%. romney in the low 40s and adds pressure to the vice presidential choice. paul ryan, a lot of conservative intellectuals are pushing paul ryan but for the reasons they're pushing him, very serious about cutting the budget. that makes him a risky choice. democrats say they would love to run against paul ryan and the plans for medicare. you have tim pawlenty, may be the safest choice in the field. former governor of minnesota. didn't win many votes but drew some applause from other republicans for the dignity of his campaign, some working class appeal, been a loyal surrogate of mitt r

for mitt romney you've got a smaller percentage, about a third, saying romney's policies are just right. but mitt romney's got upside because he does better than obama among independents in terms of their answer that his policies are right toward business. so that provides another dimension, tyler, to the debate that is unfolding this afternoon about whether the president thinks private sector's fine or not. >> all right. thank you very much, john harwood. let's bring in kenny of i cap -- oh, we're going to sue now. sue has arrived. >> i finally made it. after 45 minutes on the washington bridge. beautiful view, but i'm here nonetheless. >> how are you? >> don't ask. actually, i'm doing pretty well. and the markets bounce back. >> it has. >> you called me yesterday afternoon and you were right to sell into the rally yesterday would have been the right thing to do. >> right. >> but we're now on a friday with the weekend coming up. >> right. >> so there's a lot of macro events that are hovering out there. what do you do? >> i think you've got a lot of people that are just trueing up into

all right. let's listen in again to president obama speaking in new hampshire. >> let's go ahead and get that done. let's get it done now. and by the way, if the republicans are serious about being concerned about joblessness, we could create a million new jobs right now if congress would pass the jobs plan that i sent to them a year ago. jobs for teachers. jobs for construction workers. jobs for folks looking for work for a long time. we can do that. but i need your help, new hampshire. i need your voices. you see, i appreciate that. then i need you to get your cousins and your friends, your co-workers. look. i am not just asking for your vote. i'm asking the entire country to rally around a set of goals for our country. goals in manufacturing, energy, education, national security and the deficit. and these -- this is a real achievable plan that will lead to new jobs and more opportunity and rebuild this country on a stronger foundation. that's what we can do in the next four years. that's why

>> that's right. it's campaign clearly a choice of two candidates instead of just a referendum about the president and the campaign. mitt romney was running before. i'm with dan. it should make it bigger. i'm not positive it does. you had two campaigns speaking about very large issues and sort of pedestrian terms for a while and that had been the complaint of think leaders and editorial pages and so forth. this should elevate it. medicare is a very important issue and in terms of how you fix medicare and whether that ends up becoming a thoughtful conversation or a fruitful one remains to be seen. >> but dan, how does mr. romney separate himself or does he need to separate himself from the previous endeavors of mr. ryan as it concerns entitlement reform? that was a lightning rod on capitol hill and in many parts of the heartland and the swing states. how does he stake his own ground there and not appear to be simply adopting mr. ryan's previous proposals? >> well, the campaign has tried to say and he s

governor romney in iowa right now. >> swing states are where all the action has been for months. many people in states like new york aren't seeing much of the campaign. but it really comes down to nine places. you look across the map all the way in the east to new hampshire, to the west to nevada, and we've got now swing state polls from nbc, the "wall street journal" and the maris college institute of two of those states. first is colorado. we see that president obama and mitt romney are now tied in that state. nine electoral votes, very important. you then look to nevada where the president's holding a lead still. 50-47. the reason that's important is that mitt romney, all of these battleground states are states that barack obama carried in 2008. mitt romney has to take away most of them in order to get the 270 electoral votes, sue. he hasn't gotten there yet. he's got some advantages in places like florida. he's moving up in virginia. but he's got to try to crack ohio and then you've got states like out west like nevada which are the president's holding a lead. in wisconsin, p

romney have to do to right the ship a or does he have to do anything to right the ship or does very to shake up his crew? >> i think he needs to re-examine his own message, his message should be about how tax cuts help everybody, going to grow the economy, how to is going to create more jobs. if he is just looking at that time very narrowly and saying that only people whose taxes i'm going to cut directly are going to be beneficiaries of my policies that is a losing stance, not a ray gay i'm going to help fix the economy by slashing taxes stance. something that appeals rather than broader interests. elderly people could be in favor of tax cuts even if they aren't paying taxes because they want their children or grandchildren to do well. saying we are going to look at the narrow percentage of people directly benefit i think is very strange for republican candidate. >> sue and tyler, i want to make one other point and that is that barack obama and his team have been charging that because of the tax rate cuts that mitt romney wants for people across-the-board, including high income, that

but the problem for mitt romney and anyone else participating in the campaign right now is all the coverage is drowning out anything that politicians say. we are locked in a very tight race. we had two new polls out this morning, tracking polls. one, the washington post/abc news poll showed mitt romney 49%-brah 49%-barack obama 48%. another poll shows pro seciselye opposite. obama 48%. but they're the same poll. with a margin of error, we have essentially a tie race but the obama team believes that their advantage is in the battleground states like iowa, states like nevada, states like ohio that mitt romney needs and we'll see whether they are right. but as of now, it appears unlikely that things are going to move very much over the next couple of days because romney's canceled campaign events tomorrow, so has the president. >> when we talk about the sort of being a dead heat in the popular vote, what do we know about the way the electoral vote may be breaking one way or another, given the way the polls have gone in the past week or so. >> the electoral vote count is what i was talking abou

you're right, mitt romney had a big night last night. but right after that we got our first chance to take a look at some of the boldfaced names of the financial universe supporting romney's super pac. that's the unconnected to the political action committee run by outsiders financing a lot of television ads and campaign activity on behalf of mitt romney. take a look at some of these names. gives you a sense of who's behind the romney effort. starting with a couple of folks from bain capital partners together they gave $750,000. and phil singer, hedge fund $1 million from him. also $1 million from julian robertson. another $1 million from robert mercer. and more boldfaced names as you dive into this financial disclosure report, you see mark an dreeson, the founder of net skap posting up $50,000. the outspoken real estate investor from chicago also po ponied up $50,000. the miami dolphins owner. and harlan crow and crow holdings $300,000. he's no slouch in the department. he's got the global casino magnet who has given $10 million to newt

romney came out right away against it, vowing to fight. we saw obama come out without really spiking the football and happy that it happened and trying to move on. it caused uncertainty in the summer and the election. >> there's no volume. >> people don't understand. couple wit the citibank downgrade of a number of banks. couple wit the european situation which we're seemingly getting nothing out of and same spot. mass confusion. >> mass confusion. down 129 points so obviously there is concern out there. i'm somewhat surprised we haven't gotten more significant headlines out of europe. not that anybody expects a resolution, certainly. but it's almost radio silent for part of the day. >> i'm thinking that in the next i would imagine the next half an hour, an hour, we are getting something that's coming out of there. people are not expecting a whole lot but you're going to be hearing something, right? s&p technically going to test 1300 again, the 200-day moving average and there again i think you will see a lot of support there. i think ther

who's right here, john? i guess it's basically a dead heat. >> reporter: it is a dead heat although most people expect and i think both campaigns expect mitt romney to have a slight advantage right now. that poll that you mentioned showed a narrowing of the romney advantage, which was six points a few days ago. so there's no question that mitt romney's attacks on rick santorum, his advertisements, rick santorum's poor debate performance last week has taken a toll on santorum who was once leading in this home state. a close race. mitt romney needs to win it as you noted this is his home state. >> he grew up the son of a governor there but more of course known for his time in massachusetts and also out in salt lake. mr. santorum over the weekend made lots of statements about the separation of church and state and also that jfk's famous speech on religion at a different time when there had never been a catholic as president of the united states he said that portions of that speech made him want to throw up. has

if you look at the actions of governor romney, building the pipeline creates jobs right away. not just in terms of folks building the pipeline itself, but the downstream effects of manufacturing a more attractive business here in the united states, ensuring that we have low cost energy and reliable sources of energy so governor romney's got a jobs plan not just for the long term but the short term, as well. >> do you want the republican congress to act on the proposals the president has put before them that he says will create jobs? >> well, i think what we need to focus on is policy change that's going to make a difference both in the short run and the long run and that's reducing policy uncertainty, ensuring that investors and entrepreneurs know it's a certain environment. >> so you're comfortable with the congress killing the president's jobs act? because your candidate said today the president doesn't have a proposal. he's put a proposal before congress and you're happy if the republicans but ri it? >> these are not ideas to fix the economy in the long run. we are talking

>> all right, ty. coming up, a new poll shows president obama holds the lead over mitt romney in three key states. but mr. obama continues to the ba well wall street. is the street funneling more money to his rival mitt romney? we'll talk about that when power lunch comes back. [ male announcer ] how do you trade? with scottrader streaming quotes, any way you want. fully customize it for your trading process -- from thought to trade, on every screen. and all in real time. which makes it just like having your own trading floor, right at your fingertips. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. try our easy-to-use scottrader streaming quotes. it's another reason more investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. >>> it is power rundown time. bob pisani and john carney are with me today. good to see you, gentlemen. we told you a bit earlier we made some calls to a few of the big banks telling me they're changing their rather bearish s&p forecasts. turns out most of them are n

this one appears to have hurt mitt romney, although the polling evidence is mixed. he's fallen behind in the rasmussen poll this morning which is typically pretty good poll for republicans, but he's tied 47% in the gallup poll which just came out a few minutes ago, their daily tracking poll. but romney's not the first candidate to mess up. if you look at the recent history of the presidential campaign, almost every major party nominee has at least one moment where they trip over their tongue and make a problem for themselves. let's go back and look at a few of them. four years ago, john mccain right at the hype of the financial crisis as lehman brothers was collapsing, went on the campaign trail and said this about the state of the economy. >> the fundamentals of our economy are strong. >> the fundamentals of our economy are strong. democrats, barack obama, used that to ridicule john mccain as out of touch with the realities of the economy. now even worse may have been four years earlier when john kerry was the democratic nominee. he was making a point about the ira

back to you. >> all right. a quick programming note. please don't miss larry kudlow's interview with mitt romney tonight beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. and it of course is right here on cnbc. >>> up next, should you buy a stock with a rookie ceo? herb looks at a bunch of recent examples including mcdonald's which is having as you know a tough day today. ty? >>> but first, consumer staples getting hit. kellogg, leading the way down trading at lows not seen since july 2010 and tyson foods at lows not seen since november of that year. >>> before the break, let's take a look at the bond market. a record low in the 30-year yield today and right now the 10-year yielding 1.436%. we're back in a minute. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i'm constantly working my screens. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 checking the charts. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 looking for support, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 resistance, breakouts, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 a few other tricks that i'll keep to myself. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that's how i trade. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i do it all with charles schwab,

so i think romney's performance last night made people say, hey, maybe i don't have to sell right now. maybe i can keep going. that gives a boost to the market. >> let's bring in kenny right now. also, another reason maybe not to sell is the fact that this market has been kind of teflon coated. it keeps grinding its way higher. if you don't have to sell because of potential tax changes, go with the flow. >> i understand that argument. and as great as the debate was last night -- i thought it was actually a tremendous debate for the country to see. i thought they were both very good but i think romney came out swinging very hard, he caught everybody by surprise. no one had seen that side of him. i still think it is a very close race. i'm not sure i, for one, am going to buy i don't have to sell because i think romney's going to win. >> they don't have to sell though right away. they have until the end of the year. we still have the potential after the election to get a sell-off if everybody says those capital gains are huge. >> i think you're exactly right. this morning we tested 1,426

i think a lot of people are overplaying romney being behind in the polls right now. remember, we're -- we haven't even had one debate. we're still over a month away from election day. a lot of americans haven't even started paying attention yet. i think getting this out of the way now is a good idea for romney. >> jeff? >> i think this was very strategic of the campaign to crush that 47% youtube tape they had out there. in the big picture, the paramount issue is the october 3rd debate. romney better bring his "a" game because he has a formidable opponent when it comes to talking. >> he does. >>> united health care taking the place of kraft. will this be more reflective of the way the economy is going? >> one thing it does is it makes the dow jones industrial average more leveraged to obama care. if the individual mandate gets hit, all the insurers get hit which means that if romney gets elected, succeeds in turning back the individual mandate, we could have the dow actually shrink because health care stocks get so hammered. united health would be one of those. >> jef

republican presidential candidate mitt romney making his case right now at the annual convention. john harwood is there. hi, john. >> reporter: sue, it's a real testing time for mitt romney. he has not been able to close the sale with conservative voters in this primary season. we saw evidence of that when he was skunked on tuesday by rick santorum in minnesota, colorado and also missouri. rick santorum spoke this morning, got a favorable reception urging the members not to settle for somebody who didn't share their believes at the deepest level, it would be a hollow victory if they won to compromise with somebody in the white house. and mitt romney has to answer that. he's going to emphasize building up a rainy day fund and also his efforts as governor of massachusetts to prevent violations of liberty as we've seen president obama dealing with on the contraceptive rule. >> update us on the news today investigating the house financial services committee, possible insider trading there. >> reporter: spencer bachus first surfaced in a 60 minutes report last year, now we've learned t

>> my book isn't about policy recommendations, robert. >> all right. we'll leave it there. michelle? >>> we got the last read on the jobs report before tuesday's election. who is it going to help the most? president obama or governor romney. >>> plus, while the new york boroughs like staten island struggle without power after hurricane sandy, the city is getting ready to hold a marathon this weekend. good idea? or wasted use of resources that could be deployed somewhere else. we discuss right after the break. when you take a closer l. ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. >>> a lot to talk about today. time for the power rundown. we could redo that last discussion on a little small topic op inequality. but why not? let's go to the final employment report for tuesday'

right. all right, jim, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> thank you, sue. >> see you soon. >>> in the next hour, obama stocks versus romney stocks. we are going to check our exclusive cnbc port foal grows see hot market's banking on and whether you should, too. we will be right back. try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. ♪ [ female announcer ] today is not just about who lives in the white house, it's about who lives in the yellow house, the brick, the green, and the apartment house, too. today we not only honor the oval office, but we honor the cubicle, the open-air office and the home office as well. ♪ today is not just about who rides in air force one, it's about who rides in the 4 door sedan, the 2 door hatchback and the v8 muscle car. â

record because they're looking at conditions right now. here's the romney campaign. >> the unemployment rate did drop but only because fewer people are in the work force. >> i'd ask if you are better off than you were before. >> i'm just not seeing a ton of sunshine in here. >> transportation warehousing is where we lost some jobs. >> that's a terrible number. >> the real question. >> job creation numbers fall for the third straight month. >> it's not just about how we're doing today, but how we'll be doing tomorrow. >> now, sue, you can see there was a lot of cnbc in that ad because of course the core economic concerns are core to us as well. this discussion is being supercharged now by the jpmorgan losses of $2 billion with the obama administration saying this underscores the need for wall street reform and regulation. and of course the romney campaign saying we're for regulation too, but we're for common sense regulation, not dodd frank. sue. >> the battle goes on, john. it's only going to get more heated. thank you so much. now for the

how is that stacking up right now? >> the sense of both campaigns is that obama has a slight edge but that the race has tightened there since the debate and romney spent much of the weekend there. paul ryan there today. it is probably a couple-point edge for obama, but it could go either way. >> these things are all sort of within the margins of error and what was a tight race has gotten even tighter. mr. hohman, thank you. >>> the most powerful person right now working to fix that looming fiscal cliff is someone you probably have never heard of. cnbc's eamon javers is live in washington, d.c. with more on this. who is the mystery woman, eamon? >> hi, sue. she's katherine wilde, the head of the partnership for new york city. she is not necessarily a household name, but she he hosting some important meetings up in new york city between business leaders and political leaders. because of her convening power she's been able to bring together an astonishing list of folks. look at some of the political figures that she has b

the president and governor romney both back on the campaign trail. there are just 20 days to go now before election day. president obama in mt. vernon, iowa at this hour. governor romney down in my home state, in chesapeake, virginia. john harwood is here with us. where do the candidates stand now, john? what are they doing, how are they spinning it? >> they're both out on battleground states. both where barack obama has a slight lead over the president. couple points in iowa. less than a point in virginia if you look at the real clear politics average. i think what president obama has done is gone back on to the campaign trail with some confidence that he's put a floor under his numbers. mitt romney made a lot of progress after the debate in denver. narrowed the polls nationally and in swing states. president obama put a brake on that momentum last night by going hard at mitt romney on bain, on taxes, on 1%. and i think we'll see in the next debate, the final debate in boca raton, another swing state in florida where romney's actually been leading,

>> well, i got to say they did get many questions right. i think the patriots as a team probably had the highest percentage i've ever seen. i did hold up a picture of mitt romney, and they almost to a t i think everyone identified mitt romney, which is good, obviously, since they're from the state of massachusetts. to be fair, and i always have to say this, i can't answer all the questions about their xs and os, so let's just put that out there as well. >> good point. >> back to you. >> good point. thanks, darren. >> okay. >> well, football fans are obviously pumped up to see the rematch between the pats and giants on sunday, but las vegas has a big reason to worry. our courtney reagan is live at caesar's palace sports book in vegas with the latest, courtney. >> #. >> reporter: good afternoon, simon. folks are starting to take their seats behind me to place their bets on the big game. and while vegas really loves the casino traffic and other traffic that the super bowl weekend brings in, it's a little bit concerned about the rematch between

about what he might mean and a reinvigorated gop in the house and senate could mean for the fed. >> right. it is sort of interesting that the conversation hasn't been joined to this point but the rise in the polls has really bro brought it to the fore. what they're think something a romney presidency means a more hawkish federal reserve, but when more hawkish? the thinking is he will not reappoint bernanke. he said as much. what's that mean? it means a fed chairman, for example, like glen hubbard. here's what barclays said. any new fed chairman after january 20 14 14 14 is likely t more hawkish than under an obama presidency. >> let's talk a little bit about whether there is any possibilities should there be a romney victory that he would begin nudging him out above his term ends in 2014. >> he can't force him to resign. it is a voluntary thing that bernanke would do. dose have the ability in 2014 appoint the chairman an vice chairman and another member, beginning already actually. but the thinking is whether or not there is a war of words. and steven stanley, the economist steven stanley

people at the upper end of the scale. >> i think he used the term top 1%. >> right. now from what i understand he said simply he was going to pay for the tax cuts by broadening the base and that the burden of that was not going to fall on some of the working class people that you are speaking for in the campaign. so what's wrong with that? >> he is saying, well, we're going to shift -- again, which is already being done, shift more tax burden to higher incomes. he does it in a way that's particularly damaging by eliminating the deductibility of certain things. this is one of the key parts of how america's been able to build a great society with limited government is through our nonprofit sector. through community and civic organizations that are funded, educational organizations that are funded. and a lot of cases by people who are higher income, you know, philanthropically giving back to the community and country what they've been able to reap out of the system. now governor romney is in a sense undermining the very institutions that have to be growing if we're goin

. >> all right. that does it for us. follow me on twitter. "power lunch" starts right now. >>> lace 'em up! "halftime" is over. the second half of the trading day starts now. >>> thank you very much. best buy's stock is down more than 20% over the past year. but it is up nearly 11% today. as the co-founder and former founder and ceo says he wants another shot and take it private. and the dow is on track to snap that nine straight monday losing streak. look at it there. up 82 points at 13,179. the rest of the markets higher, as well. gold higher and oil, too. >>> and celebration time as the mars lander, there they go. we're waiting for those first pictures from mars to help to see whether the scientists, once life on the red plan elt. >>> first let's did to sue and the nyse. >> we begin with the stock you know very well. best buy trading higher as you mentioned on a bid to take the company private. the news comes after a punishing year for the electronics retailer, down more than 20% year to date. the

romney and mr. ryan are sprinting across various states today trying to win over those last few votes. what are you watching the most closely? >> most closely right now, sue, i'm looking at ohio. no republican candidate has made it to the oval office in the white house without winning the buckeye state. we need to make sure our ground game is out in force. i'm also looking at a couple of states i traveled to frequently in the last several months. iowa and colorado. can governor romney turn around a state that not only the president won narrowly in the last cycle, speaking of colorado, as well as iowa. can he split those two states. . if he does and if he can that will make his path to 270 electoral college votes that much more easily. i think he has to come out of the gate early, win florida and hope for the best in ohio. >> what do you think that the odds are in ohio? >> honestly i think the mayor and i would agree on this. i think it is so close. think it is too close to call but one thing i'm enc

romney's up 37%, 16 percentage point lead in arizona. if he could win these two that would be the step to righting the ship. >> just over two hours remaining in the trading day. our charts -- kayla, you've been preparing all week for the chart of the day, haven't you? >> i have. >> we'll have them ready when we return in two. hey, did you ever finish last month's invoices? sadly, no. oh. but i did pick up your dry cleaning and had your shoes shined. well, i made you a reservation at the sushi place around the corner. well, in that case, i better get back to these invoices... which i'll do right after making your favorite pancakes. you know what? i'm going to tidy up your side of the office. i can't hear you because i'm also making you a smoothie. [ male announcer ] marriott hotels & resorts knows it's better for xerox to automate their global invoice process so they can focus on serving their customers. with xerox, you're ready for real business. [ kareem ] i was fascinated by balsa wood airplanes since i was a kid. [ mike ] i always won

it is not right, it is against the rules and we will not let it stand. >> reporter: now mitt romney is trailing in the state of ohio. that's president obama's trying to reinforce his lead. but mitt romney's trying to deal with another issue that is his poor support among hispanics. he's addressing the hispanic u.s. chamber of commerce today. the romney campaign says he'll provide more detail on his policies especially on the economy this week. however, on a conference call a little while ago that i was on, his aides said they would not be detailing how they're going to pay for his tax cuts. >> john harwood, thank you very much. >>> the romney camp striking back after the stinging new article in politico in which it describes the campaign as, "stumbling." more now from politico executive editor, jim vandehai. i want to start with a quote from your story to get your reaction from the stories we just heard in the news. one report is a growing number of conservatives, not necessarily affiliated with the campaign but not necessarily not affiliated with it, are blamie ing stuart stevens for

we don't know. >> very interesting how romney has battled back this week. let's talk a little bit about your own performance, john. last evening on steven colbert's report. let's look at mr. harwood here. >> john harwood, you're a political analyst, who takes florida? >> well, first of all, i'm in an open marriage with my political predictions right now. >> good man. good man. that's appealing, evidently. >> yeah. but the one i love the best at the moment mitt romney comes back, wins florida, wins the nomination. >> had a good prediction there, john. an open marriage with respect to your political predictions. that's very good. >> great time. >> how was the experience with my neighbor? >> it's fantastic. i'm sure that all mont claire was proud. look, it's so fun to work in a different environment like that. communicate with a different audience. >> you're not saying we're not funny here, are you? >> no. i'm saying my college daughter can't make herself watch cnbc, but she's on colbert and stewart every night. be able to reach out to different people. the pa

mitt romney clearly has those. the challenge is for business people going to politics is being a ceo it is easier to get people under you to do what you want than government. >> right. exactly. >> herb, where are you on this? because it is ultimately leadership here that we are p putting center stage. >> george bush had the mba and not a chief executive officer of a company. knowing business is one thing. i'm an observer of ceos but the hardest thing it would seem to me and john touched on it, you know, when gordon ran continental, he could get anything done or attempted to get it done. quh you're running a country and you have a congress and you don't know where that congress will be so you have that issue. plus, when it comes to the economy, you have a world economy now. it's so much bigger than this place. it is europe and everything else. so you can be the best ceo in the world. you can provide leadership but it doesn't mean you can really i don't believe necessarily move the needle on the economy. >> i think -

who are this time around mitt romney's biggest donors? robert frank knows and has the details on that. because we did obama supporters earlier on the network. >> correct. equal time, equal money. that's right. this is one of the most exclusive clubs in politics. to get into the club, the top five donors, you need to give more than 2.2 million dollars. the top five alone have given $60 million to the romney cause. number five, foster friess, the mutual fund magnate. ran the brandywine fund. he's given more than $2.25 million to groups supporting romney. he advocates encouraging the private sector like many of the donors. private equity has come under attack in the election but romney has friends in the business. among them, john childs, the founder of jw childs, the boston private equity firm. he's given $3.1 million to the romney efforts. he's a long-time gop funder. he's given to groups opposed to tax increases. trivia, he also funds ducks unlimited, a wetlands conservation group in florida. number three is also in finance. you see a pat

obama will actually start this right now is actually change his focus from what's going on in the crude market, which is -- he's right, it's a global marketplace and really has very little control over that despite the fact that we are domestically swimming in the stuff. what i would like him to do is move forward towards something that's more localized marketplace and that's nat gas. and in a lot of ways if he worked on pushing forward some incentives for natural gas, what we'd have is this kind of localized $2.35 mmbtu market that we could go to as a transport fuel as opposed to in europe where natural gas is $11, $12, $13 on mmbtu. >> exactly. you would recommend for the long-term investors, chesapeake, sand ridge. >> all of which have been pummelled because of dropping prices in the natural gas space. >> they're getting hit hard today. >> everybody in the energy complex is getting hit today. but, again, if we can make some progress towards making natural gas this kind of local transport fuel in the next several months, if the president is forced to do that at some point and give som

, right? >> okay. i believe you. neil, nice to see you. thank you very much, bob. >>> next on the program is facebook -- that's the bell. is facebook the next myspace, the always outspoken michael wolf thinks so. he will join street signs to make his case and what it means for facebook's stock. wow. don't miss the ceo of conagra foods on "mad money" tonight at 6 p.m. eastern. this is cnbc. you. we know you. we know you have to rise early... and work late, with not enough sleep in between. how you sometimes need to get over to that exit, like, right now. and how things aren't... just about you anymore. introducing the all-new, smart-sensing... honda accord. it starts with you. one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar. though all energy development comes with some risk, we're committed to safely and responsibly producing

>> the president carried in 2008 and we have poll numbers mere as to where wisconsin stands right now. taking a look at the polls, what you see is obama is leading romney by a margin of 48% to 44% according to the real clear politics, this is an averaged assessment of the polls out there. the spread is obama up by about four in wisconsin and, of course, you know, scott put it -- his finger on it exactly. it is all about labor in wisconsin. the big fight there is scott walker facing a recall effort. that fight has got both labor and republicans and conservatives energized. we should see a real battle in wisconsin in november. >> virginia, scott, we need to pick up a little speed here. virginia didn't move much 2008 to 2012. it had been a number one state and it is still highly ranked but it is interesting nonetheless. >> yeah. it's interesting what happened. we reported on this yesterday. virginia down to number three. in 2008, it was the number two state overall. nurm ber two for business friendly. number 28 for quality of life. look at what happened this year. number three, third for

they think that's the right way to go. the line that actually three different people brought up was isn't it a shame that the best you felt about obama is when you voted for him? that perfectly captured the way they felt and been disappointed and thiey think romney captured that perfectly. john harwood, clint eastwood, how damaging is that talking about appealing to independents, simply because what happened last night has prevented romney from being solely the story coming out of the tampa? >> reporter: well, we all had our reactions in the hall. we will have to see over time what polling tells us about how successful the night was. i perceived it as a huge missed opportunity for the romney campaign. they had a very touching biographical of mitt romney that had great family moments and ann romney herself alluded on morning television, i wish more people had seen that. i think that was a signal that she wishes that had come at the top of the 10:00 p.m. hour and the broad networks were covering this. i don't think in the en

all right? he's arguing we have somehow d the welfare requirement, the work requirement in our welfare laws. and in fact what's happened was that my administration responding to the requests of five governors including two republican governors agreed to approve giving them those states some flexibility in how they manage their welfare rolls as long as it produced 20% increases in the number of people getting work. so in other words, we would potentially give states more flexibility to put more people back to work, not to take them off the work requirement under welfare. everybody who's looked at this says what governor romney's saying is absolutely wrong. not only are his superpacs running millions of dollars of ads making this claim, governor romney himself is saying this on the stump and approving this. so, the -- you know, the contrast i think is pretty stark. that's, you know, they can run the campaign that they want. but the truth of the matter is you can't just make stuff up. that's one th

that's how much the investors at the common fund manage right now. sue is there with a special guest from accel partners. as we head to the break, a check of the s&p sectors right now. the defensive plays are doing well so far today on "power lunch." ♪ ♪ here we are, me and you ♪ on the road ♪ and we know that it goes on and on ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of making memories and keeping promises. ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. ♪ ♪ oh, oh, all the way ♪ oh, oh >>> welcome back to >>> welcome back to "power lunch." a couple stocks on the radar. zoll medical is up 23%, being acquired by a japanese firm. a 93% premium. this is a medical equipment maker known for defibrillatorde. this is deal monday. we have tudo up 447%, topping the nasdaq today after announcing a merger. they're known for youtubes of china. the deal is estimated at $100 billion. oracle is downgraded by jeffries. the firm citing competition. sue, over to you in orlando. >> th

pretty big percentage saying they don't know right now or are unsure. are americans better off than they were four years ago? only 40% of our 58% of respondents said yes. 49% saying no. what would ben bernanke do if mitt romney won the white house an we said would bernanke resign? 80% said no, he would not. 7% said yes. asked about the bigger political question of the fiscal cliff, 74% say it is already hurting the economy. 15% say it is going to affect later. 11% saying no effect at all. check out these concerns from ethan harris of bank of america. "the u.s. and global economy are entering the most dangerous period of this economic recovery. if the fiscal cliff is badly handled at the same time that the european crisis enters another acute phase, a recession is likely." sue, those are concerns about political issues that are out there among wall street veterans, waumt economill strees and strategists. we'll have interesting data on the european crisis at 2:00. >>> we know it is thinner, we know it is lighter. maybe it will fit in a cocktail purse. bri

of course, right back here at 2:00 with the latest and an update. for now, sue, back to you. >> thank you. todd. >>> isaac is threatening to put a damper on mitt romney's big moment at the rnc convention this week in tampa. josh boek joining us, live from washington. you wrote a very interesting article today about some of the first-time gop delegates of swing states and interested that they try to have a unified message but it's not working that well. they have big differences. >> that's exactly right. this is the first convention for the republicans since the emergence of the tea party and within that movement what you see, it is a desire to institutionalize a smaller government. whether that be through restricting entitlement programs or a balanced budget amendment to limit tax increases or for that matter a return to the gold standard. >> that's a nod to ron paul, is it not? >> not just a nod to ron paul. newt gingrich committed to the idea of a commission earlier in the campaign and pushed by the american principle project in the primaries so t